Bubble Waffle Cafe–Ironwood Plaza Richmond

It seems like Bubble Waffle Cafe (BWC) locations are steadily increasing around metro Vancouver.  This location is in South East Richmond inside Ironwood Plaza, so parking is a breeze.   BWC is known for it’s customizable soup noodles along with being able to add $1 for the bubble waffle.

We got here late in the evening as a second choice because Pho 10 nearby had already closed.  Since it was so late, there weren’t too many patrons.

They have a full menu with pictures of the food and drinks.  You then order by ticking off your choices on the order sheet.  Most, if not all of the meals come with a hot/cold drink of your choice.

If ordering the soup noodles, you start by choosing the soup base, then type of noodles, 2 toppings, and a hot/cold drink.

This is the laksa soup, with rice noodle. 

Even without the toppings, the soup noodles already have lots of vegetables and some meats that come standard.  The soup was flavorful and not too spicy.  We did notice one of the 2 toppings were missing, specifically the fish tofu. 

We brought this up to the server who informed the kitchen.  However, I guess the kitchen staff didn’t trust us, and told the server to come back out to tell us to check the bottom of the soup.  We stirred the noodles around to show the server and she immediately apologized and went back in to get us a side plate of fish tofu:

Although the missing fish tofu was resolved, we felt it took a bit of effort to do so.  This was not the fault of our server, but just the fault of the kitchen for treating us like we didn’t know where to look in the first place.

Next we ordered Hainan chicken with oil rice

This was a good sized portion.  The chicken was quite juicy and the oil rice was quite acceptable.

Next we tried their fried noodle option.   For the fried noodles, they also let you select the type of noodles and meat. We chose udon and Kurobuta pork.

The udon was a bit too soft.  The pork was quite tasty though.  Overall it tastes a bit like teriyaki sauce fried noodle since it was on the sweet side.

All the drinks come in paper cups which we didn’t think looked too good since this was a full service restaurant, not fast food or food court.

Finally here is the bubble waffle for the extra $1:

The bubble waffle came at the same time as the food.  So by the time we ate it, it was already cold.  It was still good though as it was not too sweet nor oily tasting.

This BWC has a good location as parking is good.  The pricing here is quite good as you can get a full meal and drink for under $10.  It was odd for them to serve drinks in paper cups though.  It would have been better if they served the bubble waffle like a dessert after the main meal.  It was hard to believe we got short changed 1 of the 2 toppings for the soup noodles, maybe it was late the kitchen staff were sleepy. 

This location is certainly more comfortable eating here than in their other food court locations.

SFDD gives 3.5 out of 5 Delights.